


The Arc of Ascension, Saga 7: Dancing Around the Table

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [44]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Anger Management, Appeals, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Communication Failure, Denial, Difficult Answers, Difficult questions, Distrust, F/F, Fear, Lesbian Character, Overwatch Taipei, Peace Offerings, Poly Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Poly Brigitte Lindholm, Poly Hana "D.va" Song, Poly Lúcio Correia dos Santos, Polyamorous Character, Questions, Talon Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Talon Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Talon Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani, The Concordat, Vishkar Corporation, damaged relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 09:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15434181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: The new gods have risen, ready to grapple with a world of heroes. Moira O'Deorain herself has been reborn, now made one of the creations her previous self meant to rule, and she works with her wife - the goddess Mercy - and their ensemble of new deities to remake the world, toimproveit... for everyone.Hana Song has been taken to Oasis to be Changed, and the gods attempt to offer information to their former friends in Overwatch in hopes of building trust, and restoring severed ties.Unfortunately, not everyone in Overwatch is interested.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascensionis a continuance ofOf Gods and Monsters: The Arc of CreationandThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. It will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, interludes, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears,please subscribe to the series.





	The Arc of Ascension, Saga 7: Dancing Around the Table

_[Mid-June, 2078]_

Angela tapped the surface of the conference table in front of her, nervously, as her wife Moira settled into place on her right, Lena beyond her, and Satya on her left, in from Utopaea.

She wished her other wife Fareeha was here with her, as well. But Ana would almost certainly be on the other side of the link, and after last time... well.

A video conference wasn’t really the best way to go about this, in the doctor's opinion, but it was all they could get Overwatch to accept. Distance, and lots of it. Scrambled, on both ends. The signal converted to pure analogue at an agreed-upon neutral interconnection point, at nontrivial cost, before being transferred back to digital, and scrambled again. Sombra and Athena both standing down, by mutual consent.

All this negotiation, simply to explain how Hana was being Changed, her prognosis, and to discuss their plans for defusing the situation in the China Sea. 

As the connection opened, showing four figures sitting at a conference room table not so very unlike their own, she knew it would not be so easy.

\-----

Jack Morrison ruminated on his thoughts, sitting at the conference table, fist resting on the front of his chin and mouth, thinking, as Ana settled into place on his right, McCree and Hanzo on his left, in the new, second facility they'd already started calling Overwatch Taipei.

He wished he knew whether he was doing the right thing. He hoped Fareeha would be on the far side of the link, after Ana's report, so he could see her for himself, try to see what his XO had seen. He hoped the strategy they'd put together would work.

A video conference was probably the safest way to do this. Athena didn't screw around; even Sombra, cheating, wouldn't be able to track back their exact location, and the time delays in the long chain of relays would imply very strongly they were deep in the mountains of Nepal, and they'd all just have to hope that was good enough.

The bad-faith part, though... he didn't like that. But if they were going to have any chance to confront Oasis about what they were doing through Vishkar, this was going to be it.

As the connection opened, showing four figures sitting at a conference room table not so very unlike their own, he knew it would not be easy.

\-----

“Jack,” Angela greeted them with a small bow of her head, the seal of the Concordat behind her. “Ana. Jesse. Hanzo."

"Angela," Jack replied with a similar bow, the flags of Overwatch and the United Nations behind him. "Satya. Moira. Lena."

"No Mei-Ling?" Angela asked.

"Mei-Ling is busy elsewhere," Hanzo said, quietly. "With her research."

"Ah, that's unfortunate - but, of course, I completely understand. I hope you'll give her my best."

"I will," the archer nodded.

"No Fareeha?" Jack asked.

"Given her last interaction with Captain Amari, she felt it unwise to attend. Lena is here representing the military in her place."

"That's too bad. Tell her I said hello."

"Where're Lúcio and Brigitte?" Lena asked, seeing only four chairs. Angela glanced to her, then back, nodding, and adding, "We had anticipated that both of them would want to hear about Hana’s condition firsthand. Are they en route?”

“We’re more interested in discussing something else first,” Ana said flatly. "Then we can talk about Hana."

“Oh?” Moira raised an eyebrow, as Lena frowned, and Angela closed her eyes briefly in disappointment. “Do go on.” 

"You're changing people," Morrison said, "using the Vishkar developments. Athena's been watching. It's subtle, but it's there. We know. It has to stop."

"If you mean we are improving people's lives, then yes," Satya interjected, "we are. And we will not stop. We are proud of our work."

"You know damn well what I mean," he said, turning to focus on Moira’s image. "We don't know what you're changing, exactly, and we don't know how, but the shifts are visible in the data if you look hard enough."

"Our immunisation programme is robust; perhaps that's what you're seeing," Moira smirked. "Although proper sewer work has done as much as anything else. Are we to waste time speculating about the impact of public health programmes, or are we going to get to the actual item on the agenda?"

_Not if Lú and Brigitte aren't here, we're not_ , Lena thought, scowling. _This is a setup. It's Ana's fault, isn't it? And Jack's going along. That bloody wanker._

"Are you seriously going to try to sell us that line?" the soldier asked. "That it's just 'public health measures'?"

"I'm not trying to sell you anything," the geneticist replied. "I thought we were meeting to discuss Hana Song's progress. Had I known we were to discuss public works, I'd've brought flyers and a display board." Moira smiled, but it was strained, and tight. "Do you have a single medical doctor left on your staff? Have you any idea how much damage can be undone simply by removing the effects of chronic lead exposure?"

"You're _changing_ people, doc." McCree snapped. "Genetically, maybe other ways too. Small amounts, maybe, but on a large scale. You might think you can fool some of these folks, but you can't fool Athena - or me. I _know_ you. I watched you peel Gabriel apart in the Blackwatch days, and I know a leopard doesn't change its spots."

Moira reacted with what appeared to be genuine shock. "I kept Gabriel alive! I kept him going as the SEP's hackwork literally tore his body to pieces!"

"Until your little _toy_ there _killed_ him. And Winston, while she was at it."

"You..." Lena gasped. "You MOTHERFUCKER!" she shouted, enraged, standing quickly, her chair falling behind her, before Moira grabbed her, taking her hands, looking into her eyes. "Down, _a leanbh_. They're provoking us. Don't let them."

"That was uncalled for, Jesse," Angela said, quietly, as Lena barely kept herself from shrieking at the cowboy. "One might even say it was cruel."

"Not sure it was," he replied, giving not an inch.

"It was," Jack acknowledged. "Jesse? That's not why we're here. Keep a lid on it, or take a walk. Your call."

The cowboy muttered something indistinct under his breath, but, after a moment, nodded. "Got it, boss."

"Thank you, Jack." Angela set her mouth, took a breath, and tried to salvage the situation. "Of course we do genetics work," she acknowledged, "as part of our health care regime. For example, we preemptively remove certain genetic conditions - diseases - which no one would contest are anything less than horrible. We're building clinics for this purpose around the world. It's hardly a secret."

Lena sat, again, and seethed as she glared at McCree, and then at Morrison, and then at Amari, not making a list in her head, but the thought occurred. _That was **low**_ , the teleporter thought. _We should've gone straight to Lúcio and Brigitte. This was bad faith the whole bloody time, and talking to Overwatch was a **mistake**._

Morrison's voice tipped his frustration. "Come off it, Angela, you know it's more than that. We were friends, before..." he glared back to Moira, "...before. If there's _anything_ of the old you left in there, stop covering up for them. Please. You _know_ what's going on, and you _know_ it's wrong. Somewhere in there, you _have_ to."

"...I'm still me, Jack. I have been, the whole time. Moreso than ever. Why can't you understand that?"

"Because you're _not_. Not the you that you _were_. None of you are. Come back to us, Ange. We could help you find yourself again. All of you." _Except Moira_ , he added to himself, and then realised that was wrong. "Even you, Dr. O'Deorain. You're all trapped in... whatever this is, and you're dragging more people into it all the time, and it's spiralling out of control. But it's not too late. We can help the real you find your way back out. _All_ of you."

Lena grimaced with renewed anger as Angela slumped, looking down at the arm of her chair for lack of anything else to see in that direction, before her bronze eyes flicked back towards the camera. "Did you have any intention of..."

"Dear - allow me. Let me offer, perhaps, a hypothetical," Dr. O'Deorain interrupted, her hands arched together, her eyes pools of shimmering quicksilver, and Angela waved her hands, telling her to go on. "Putting the frankly nonsensical question of identity aside... imagine if one could - _hypothetically_ , I stress - relieve certain people of certain types of... irrational fears. Of certain outsized reactions to those not almost exactly like themselves. Fears that manifest in violent reactions against, say, hearing a foreign tongue spoken. Fears that cause them to see entire classes of people not as people, but as objects. Or, not even eliminate those reactions entirely, but... reduce them, so they are less akin to manias, and more approachable by rational thought... wouldn't that be a positive step?"

" _Hypothetically_ ," Ana said, with clear distaste. She'd opposed this conference, fiercely, but this time, was not going to make the mistake of leaving it to others. "Through conditioning?"

Moira shrugged. "Does the method matter? But let's say it does, and it's more a matter of curtailing certain developmental excesses. Ones caused, perhaps, in part, by generations of being raised in uncertainty, and deprivation. Or, perhaps, by other factors. Regardless, we will say - undoing, or at least limiting, damage already done."

"Fencing people in," Jack retorted. "Restricting what people can _be_ , in other words. Is that what the old you would've called _good_ , Angela?"

"Freeing them from outrageous fear _is_ a good,” Moira said archly, and her wife nodded alongside her. “Freedom from fear was one of the Four Freedoms, was it not? A foundational tenant of the United Nations - the organisation which originally chartered Overwatch?"

Ana dismissed the idea with a gesture. “A goal to be achieved through _understanding!_ Through education, through appreciation - not forced upon people. If they do not do it on their own, it’s meaningless.” 

Moira looked distinctly unimpressed. “Countries have forced racial desegregation, created laws against hate crimes, dissolved borders, enforced settlements, and demanded their citizens accept the other - with generally poor results - for centuries. Education and understanding might follow - _rarely_ \- but it was never guaranteed. So if by ‘meaningless’ you mean 'actually _works_ ,' then sign me on for Camp Nonsense."

Angela smiled a little to her wife as she rallied herself before turning back towards the others. "Picture a world without anti-Omnic hatred, without fascism, without misogyny. Oh, they'd still be opinions - mindsets - that could still be arrived at other ways, of course, but... a world without the driving subconscious _terror_ that feeds those ideas, that allows them to be fertile, and grow, and spread."

"I'm still illegal in 25 nations, mate," Lena said, controlled anger still clear in her voice, "and my rights aren't respected in 30 more, and it's not 'cause of anything I've done."

"So you admit what you are doing," said Ana.

"The question is, still, _hypothetical_ ," Moira repeated, and Ana glared back at her.

"You do not have the right to make such decisions _for_ people. Even if I agree with you," Hanzo insisted, knowing, to a degree, that he did, "you do not have the _right_ to impose such things upon humanity."

Satya raised an eyebrow. “Who _would_ you give that right? A government? We act in concert with the duly elected governments of every country in which we operate.”

“They don't know what -” Jack began, but another voice interrupted and overrode him.

“No one!” Ana’s back was ramrod straight, her voice full of barely controlled rage. “ _No one_ has that right, and no one _should_. You claim to be freeing them from fear, but you’re freeing them from their free will!” 

“Ana, that's nonsense.” Angela shook her head. “Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything - what we _are_ doing is giving them _more_ options, and _more_ freedoms, not fewer.”

Jack scowled. “How many would agree to this ‘freedom’ if they knew what you would do to them? If those governments you mentioned _really_ know how far you would go?”

“We offer them a _better life_ ,” Angela insisted, "in _every_ meaningful way."

Hanzo crossed his arms. “A gilded cage, like the one you've made for yourselves.”

"You think I'm bloody caged, mate?" Lena interjected, a hard look in her copper eyes, the last of her patience for any of this all but exhausted. "I could show you how _caged_ I am _right_..."

"Lena, please!" Moira pinched the bridge of her nose, straining to control her temper, gesturing over to her daughter with her other hand urging calm. “Is it somehow nobler to die in squalid poverty, ruled by fear and hatred, than to live in comfort, and at peace, and with the _freedom_ to pursue your ambitions, rather than have to fight simply to stay alive?”

“Peace,” Jesse drawled, “imposed from the top, not agreed to. Funny way to go about peace. Doesn't seem that different to me from what you're complain' about.”

“It is obvious we will not make any further progress today,” Satya said as she stood from her chair, her hands automatically smoothing down the front of her dress. “We had hoped to give you an update on Hana’s status, and to offer further cooperation - but it is clear you negotiated this meeting in bad faith, and are in no way ready to accept the true reality.”

“This isn’t over,” Morrison objected.

“Then once again,” Satya said as she reached out to cut their connection, “we disagree.”

\-----

"I'm sorry, mum," Lena said, as the four goddesses cleared the conference room. "I just... I didn't think they'd..."

"They think we're still who we... they think _I_ am still who _I_ was... before," Moira said. "We took a chance, and it went badly. It was not your fault."

"I still think it was a risk worth taking," Angela said, as she closed the door behind Satya, the last one out. "I would do it again, all things the same."

Lena shook herself out. "Next time, I'll be ready. I won't let them..." she started, before she found Emily hugging her, and then Danielle as well.

"That was _awful_ ," Emily said, running one hand through Lena's hair. "I'm so sorry they did that."

"I am sadly unsurprised," Danielle said, kissing Lena's forehead. "But I have a history of being disappointed in Overwatch."

"It's all right, loves," Lena said, happy all at once, all over again. "We learn from our mistakes, don't we?"

"We do," Moira said, pleased with her daughter, as Angela and Satya debated lunch. "Indeed, we do."

\-----

"What the hell was that supposed to be?" Lúcio demanded. "Our _one_ chance to find out what's happening to Hana, and the four of you pull _that?!_ "

“We already know what’s happened to her,” Jack countered coolly. “She’s been taken. She’s being... altered. The data she sent gives us a pretty good idea of what they’ll be doing to her.” 

“That’s not the same as a real update,” Brigitte said in a hurt tone, “and you know it.”

Reinhardt crossed his arms, clearing his throat just loudly enough to draw everyone’s attention to him. “She is right, Jack.” 

“Yes,” Jack admitted, granting her a bit of contrition. “You're right. Things could change. But do you think they’d have really told us her _actual_ condition, or just what they wanted us to hear?”

"Y'all saw how quick Tracer flew off the handle, right?" McCree said. "One good poke, and she was ready to teleport through a screen and kill somebody. Me, in particular."

"We already knew that," Jack said. "Provoking her didn't gain us anything, she's been that way since..."

"Exactly my point, Jack. Since São Paulo. You saw how quickly Moira jumped over, got her back under control?" He shook his head. "Coup or no coup, that hasn't changed. Have t'wonder what else hasn't, either."

Lúcio looked unconvinced. “You ‘poked’ her with the death of her best friend. You did that to me? I’d get pretty pissed too.”

“Getting her angry isn’t what matters - it's the way she’s still under Moira's control. How quickly she brought her back down.” Jack said, meditating a little on Jesse's observation. “Do you know what 'a leanbh' means? It means 'my child'." He shook his head. "She made Gardner her niece, Ziegler her wife, and Oxton, apparently, her _daughter_. It's grotesque."

“Back down’s relative,” Brigitte said with a frown. “But... you think that’s what Hana will be, after this? A puppet?” 

“Even so,” Reinhardt interjected before Jack could respond, “you put testing their reactions above Hana’s life - and the right for her loved ones to know more.” He shook his head. “That was beneath you. That was beneath _us._ ”

"It was our only chance to confront them about that, or about what's been done to them, or about Vishkar," Jack said. "We had to take it."

"Regardless of how many 'hypotheticals' she put around her questions," Athena said, "Dr. O'Deorain let a great deal slip out. We know much more than we did a week ago. I have been able to narrow my analysis substantially, as a result."

"Thank you, Athena," Jack said. "I call that a victory."

“I call that _bullshit_. I’m going back to Rio,” Lúcio said as he turned for the door. “You hear anything else? I want to know _then_ , not two days later.” 

Brigitte watched the door slam shut with a wretched, torn expression, and jumped when Reinhardt’s hand gently landed on her shoulder.

“Go. Take a few days.” He eyed Jack and Jesse, daring them to disagree. “I will call, should anything change.”

Brigitte gave him a grateful nod, then quickly followed Lúcio out.

Jack sighed, falling into a chair. “And what happens if they run straight to Oasis, try to see Hana?”

“They will not,” Reinhardt assured him. “The young man’s temper runs hot, but he’ll think things over, especially with Brigitte there to talk it through. Give them a little time.”

“It’s still a risk.”

“Better to risk a few days without them,” Reinhardt said gravely, “than to drive them both away forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourteenth instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension_. To follow this story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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